Supreme Control

A Century of Law was over turned by the Supreme Court when they ruled that corporations have as much right to political free speech as an American citizen.

Now, elections will be tightly controlled by corporations representing the private interests of billionaire hedge fund and private equity firms.

No wonder the Supreme Court went all the way back to 1907, the same year Teddy Roosevelt signed the Tillman Act, which banned corporate donations to federal campaigns.

From an article in the Nation magazine; ”Teddy Roosevelt a Republican president who was so worried about the power of trusts that he called for public financing of elections and told Congress “All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law”.

Spring forward to today and quoting from the Washington Spectator; ”When corporations or unions finance attack ads directly, they must publicly disclose their contributions. Corporations and unions can dodge disclosure, however, if they fund a trade group or non profit to mount their political attack ads for them. In Orwellian fashion, an attack ad funded by ExxonMobil, for example, might be disclosed as being paid for by an entity called something like “Americans for Clean Air”.

Too many people allow themselves to be fooled by TV. Logic cannot combat the onslaught of Orwellian double speak and mind numbing advertisements the Supreme Court has just unleashed.

The Washington Spectator reports the lobbying group Patton Boggs released a memo on the day of the ruling stating; ”While the limits and prohibitions on contributions remain in place, much more spending by outside groups throughout the election cycle specifically praising or criticizing candidates should be expected.” It’s no holds barred now and the corporations know it.

And that’s how we loose our vote. Not that it mattered much before, but they had to throw us a few bones or we’d vote them out. As the Romans used to say “give them bread and circuses“. Now, we’re not getting any bread, nor will we get the few bones thrown our way; it’s more corporate circuses convincing us to vote against our own self interest.